Xenoblade Chronicles - Wii

[Davros sock drawer]

And the ability to look around in a first-person view.

Yes! Ever since OoT I crave that in third person games.

[Professor Rob]

Yes! Ever since OoT I crave that in third person games.

This is crying out for it; it's a glaring omission. The draw distance on the landscapes is like nothing else I've seen.

[stefcha]

This is crying out for it; it's a glaring omission. The draw distance on the landscapes is like nothing else I've seen.

Last night I was in the Ether Mines, and at the middle bit I looked down, amazed to see all of where I must have to go. The wife wandered by and asked what I was doing and I launched into a diatribe on draw distances, how bad they can be, and how, especially for the Wii, it all looked pretty amazing so you just have to stop and stare sometimes. I got called weird

[Davros sock drawer]

The Bionis Leg has blown me away already in that regard, it goes on forever! And not in a boring way, it feels quite un-corridor like.

I mean, essentially it's doing Hyrule Field but bigger, but considering games have been doing that for ages this is the first one that has succesfully repeated the feeling I got in OoT when I first stepped out of Kokiri Forest.

[Nespresso]

Currently in the Ether Mines, party is level 27 and been playing for a little over 18 hours.

There's still so much I do not understand lol (what is "Spike" for example and how does Skill Linking work? Or what about Tension?). Me needs a guide!

[Mr.Jeff]

Spike damage is essentially additional damage that is done by certain enemies.

Some of them cause additional damage everytime you hit them with auto-attack or arts, some cause the same additional damage but only when they are toppled only and some monsters do additional damage when the characters get too close to them.

Arguably only the first two are really dangerous and it'll be easy enough to spot when that happens. I had a fight with an elite with insane spike damage a few days ago and basically managed to kill my party by attacking the monster too much.

For skill linking, if you look back a few pages, you'll see that revlob did a great summary of what it entails.

[Professor Rob]

Currently in the Ether Mines, party is level 27 and been playing for a little over 18 hours.

There's still so much I do not understand lol (what is "Spike" for example and how does Skill Linking work? Or what about Tension?). Me needs a guide!

Spike is where damage can be done (either by you or by the monster) independent of actual attacks. Some monsters damage you if you're stood too close, some damage you if they're toppled. You can get armour which inflicts spike damage on monsters, and gems that increase it (or decrease the amount you take). You can counter it in various ways but I'd have to re-read the tutorial screen before giving further advice. I just tend to wade in rather than taking it into account, but I suppose that's not the right way to do it.

EDIT: As Mr.Jeff said.

[Nespresso]

Thanks guys. Also read that skill linking summary by Revlob and from what I understand I should basically have a look every once in a while to see if a new skill has unlocked and whether or not I can link that with another party member. Rinse and repeat until I unlock all three branches for all characters then right?

[Mr.Jeff]

It's more a case of the more skills you unlock on a character, the more choices you have for skills of the same shape to share with other characters.

The higher the affinity, the greater the number of different skill type/shapes that you can share between two people.

[Mars]

My Classic controller arrived today

SHIT JUST GOT REAL.

[stefcha]

Currently in the Ether Mines, party is level 27 and been playing for a little over 18 hours.

There's still so much I do not understand lol (what is "Spike" for example and how does Skill Linking work? Or what about Tension?). Me needs a guide!

I'm as far in as you (except I've played 6 hours longer to get to that level, bah!) and that's the first time I've seen or heard of Spike Tension I'm aware of, but with little clue about it. Sharla recently got a skill to increase tension so I've been trying it out and can't see anything change onscreen, so if there's a bar for it I can't see it. I think high tension puts your character portaits on fire, but I can't work out how tensioned (or not) you are, from the look of some gem stats descriptions it seems low tension = bad so it'd be nice to know.

[stefcha]

Thanks guys. Also read that skill linking summary by Revlob and from what I understand I should basically have a look every once in a while to see if a new skill has unlocked and whether or not I can link that with another party member. Rinse and repeat until I unlock all three branches for all characters then right?

An early mistake I made (due to not understanding it) was linking the "wear medium armour" thing, which is a complete waste of affinity coins because all your characters have that anyway to start with. At least you get them back when you unlink, so link something more useful instead.

edit: And make sure you're going down the skill tree you want, the game suggests getting everything one horizontal level at a time but I'm not fussed about things like heavy armour (yet) so I've been ploughing straight down a couple of the trees for some good stuff.

[Professor Rob]

An early mistake I made (due to not understanding it) was linking the "wear medium armour" thing, which is a complete waste of affinity coins because all your characters have that anyway to start with. At least you get them back when you unlink, so link something more useful instead.

I did this too, but didn't realise you could unlink them until just now.

[Davros sock drawer]

I'm as far in as you (except I've played 6 hours longer to get to that level, bah!) and that's the first time I've seen or heard of Spike Tension I'm aware of, but with little clue about it. Sharla recently got a skill to increase tension so I've been trying it out and can't see anything change onscreen, so if there's a bar for it I can't see it. I think high tension puts your character portaits on fire, but I can't work out how tensioned (or not) you are, from the look of some gem stats descriptions it seems low tension = bad so it'd be nice to know.

Tension is the blue bar in the top left of the screen.

When maxed it enables you to do a chain attack.

So long as you have one bar or more you will be revived if killed.

Can't remember how it's filled up though! Doing stuff probably...

[Ferine]

Actually the blue bar is your Party Gauge.

Tension is the morale or determination of your character; I don't know why they don't use one of those terms, really. It's depicted by the character portraits and how motivated they look, a fiery background being the best of the five states. A hard and fast rule is that positive events, like landing criticals, raises it whilst unlucky events, like missing, lowers it. If a character's Tension is lower than the default you can run up to them and press B to encourage them, raising it a level. Unlike the Party Gauge, characters' Tension doesn't persist between battles.

As for what it does, a high Tension increases a character's accuracy and critical chance, a low Tension having the opposite effect. There's also at least one Art that requires maximum Tension to use and is amazing!

[Davros sock drawer]

Goddammit, I thought I'd crossed over to the advice-giving stage!

[stefcha]

Tension is the morale or determination of your character; I don't know why they don't use one of those terms, really. It's depicted by the character portraits and how motivated they look, a fiery background being the best of the five states. A hard and fast rule is that positive events, like landing criticals, raises it whilst unlucky events, like missing, lowers it. If a character's Tension is lower than the default you can run up to them and press B to encourage them, raising it a level. Unlike the Party Gauge, characters' Tension doesn't persist between battles.

5 states, based on the facial expression of pictures you're not usually looking at in battle? How obvious! I'll pay more attention next time I cast the tension up thing and see what happens, not sure it's as useful as I might've thought?

[stefcha]

Goddammit, I though I'd crossed over to the advice-giving stage!

Apart from the first sentence the rest was sound, so have a +1

[Ferine]

Goddammit, I though I'd crossed over to the advice-giving stage!

Come back when you're at 90 hours, son.

Speaking of which, I'm currently putting off finishing the game. I'm almost certain I'm at the actual point of no return now — the game having faked me out a few times — but I don't have any of the 'ultimate' weapons yet and some of my armour is horribly mismatched; I can't go into a final cutscene looking like this!

I've got 100% of the Collectopaedia bar the Other section, which for the longest time I just assumed was a place holder page until you'd reached the next area. I suspect filling it would be a major ball ache without a FAQ, though.

[Alan Stock]

If you were wondering, all of the things you folks have been asking about are explained in the game, but later on, via tutorials. The game just drip feeds stuff to you as you need it. I'm 60 hours in and the only thing I've still not seen a tutorial on is tension, which I discovered about in the manual when I was on the loo

Also, don't worry about spike damage at all until you get the tutorial about it, I still haven't found any monsters which deal it. But one thing which is quite useful is if you make/find any Spike gems, stick them on your character and they'll deal Spike damage whenever they're hit, great for tanks!

[Davros sock drawer]

The game just drip feeds stuff to you as you need it.

It's more of a constant barrage IMO.

It's good complicated though. Well, not complicated I suppose - complex.

[Mr.Jeff]

I hadn't even realised properly about the tension states of the different characters. Although that explains why the characters are demotivated after being resurrected and need encouragement.

I think I'm only slightly behind you aimless but I'm determined to try some of the optional sidequests available which are currently 10-15 level above my squad sitting at level 78. There's even a challenge quest at the moment for taking down a level 108 bunny.

The collection quests are bcoming wonderfully vague at this point with helpful hints such as "Collect this item from a monkey somewhere on the Bionis".

I suspect that I'll end up way beyond the 105 hours I'm currently on.

[Guest]

Classic controllers here, £15

http://www.choicesuk.com/Product.aspx/official_nintendo_classic_controller_white_wii_826730

[polygon_monkey]

What is the thin bar between portrait and xp bar (or is it under the xp bar)?

45 hours in and I still haven't figured that out yet.

[Nespresso]

What is the thin bar between portrait and xp bar (or is it under the xp bar)?

45 hours in and I still haven't figured that out yet.

That's your Art Point meter. Says so in the manual.

You learn a new Art once it's full.

[Majora]

I know this isn't a big deal in the scheme of things...but what on earth were thinking of with the voice for that Mechon You know the one I'm talking about. Just not fitting at all. It genuinely made me lol.

This game does so much right though, particularly in terms of exploration. Suddenly stumbling into an area full of Level 70 enemies while you sneak around trying to collect the orbs is pretty awesome. And the draw distance and landscape just gets more and more impressive. It's a shame I can't experience this in 720p but still, it's amazing for the Wii.

[Talk Show Host]

I know this isn't a big deal in the scheme of things...but what on earth were thinking of with the voice for that Mechon You know the one I'm talking about. Just not fitting at all. It genuinely made me lol.

This game does so much right though, particularly in terms of exploration. Suddenly stumbling into an area full of Level 70 enemies while you sneak around trying to collect the orbs is pretty awesome. And the draw distance and landscape just gets more and more impressive. It's a shame I can't experience this in 720p but still, it's amazing for the Wii.

Are you referring to the Japanese voice over? Because it's fucking amazing.

[Corleth the Fey]

My lips are sealed.

[Nespresso]

The game really comes alive when it's on the original VO. Feels like I'm watching a really good anime but actually playing it.

[Mr.Jeff]

Must be said that Shulk's VA is really fucking weak for the Japanese voices. If I was a mechon, I'd like to shiv that cunt as well.

Everyone else is fab. Especially Melia. Dat accent.